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Besides being paranoid, the idea that McCain’s genuinely weak “Celeb” ad draws from Triumph of the Will is remarkable for something else: its implicit contempt for modern Germans. It is not much better than the pro-war German-bashing that took place during 2002-03 when war supporters frequently complained that the Germans had lost their former enthusiasm [...]
Filed under: politics
Despite its great importance for U.S. interests in Afghanistan and the region, the failed, rather clumsy attempt by the Pakistani civilian government to rein in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and place it under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior has not received nearly as much comment as it should. Coming in the [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Not enough has been said about John Schwenkler‘s fine TAC essay on culinary conservatism, and unfortunately too much of what has been said has been ridiculous, so it is gratifying to see my Scene colleague Alan Jacobs taking up the subject in this first of two posts. Before I say anything more about the essay [...]
The campaign controversy of the moment seems to be whether McCain has been telling lies about his opponent, with the additional accusation from the opposing camp that he is also engaged in race-baiting. Of course, he is telling lies, and he isn’t engaged in race-baiting, but in this bizarre election cycle you can be sure that he [...]
Filed under: politics
Over the course of the last few months, Rasmussen has been tracking attitudes about voting for a black candidate for President. What they have been finding is that the public is gradually becoming more willing to support such a candidate, but what is most striking in the three surveys they have done is how constant and [...]
Filed under: politics
It never ceases to amaze me that the convergence of major candidates on some of the most important questions of policy can be described as evidence of so-called post-partisanship. Gerald Seib writes today: And clearly some of that is going on. But in this election year, the movement has deeper meaning. These are two candidates [...]
Filed under: politics
At the TAC main blog, Clark Stooksbury points us to this gem from Limbaugh: How does it make you feel that Zhang Linsen has a big Hummer with nine speakers blaring as he pulls out into a four-lane road with so much smog he basically can’t see the car in front of him, and you [...]
Glenn Greenwald has a pointed, smart post about the responses to his call to oust Blue Dog Democrats from the party. One of the observations he made that applies equally well to the mentality in both parties was this: Blind, uncritical allegiance to one’s Party — and to all of its officials — is the [...]
Filed under: politics
The most remarkable part of Rich Lowry’s column today was this line: Berlin at times sounded as much like Obama’s coming-out party as the candidate of a transnational progressivism — in which global norms are more important than sovereign nations — as his audition as commander-in-chief. What struck me about this passage was its implicit [...]
Filed under: foreign policy
Speaking of the “surge,” I heartily recommend my TAC colleague Kelley Vlahos’ post on the “surge”-as-Republican loyalty test, but I would just add that there is nothing terribly new about this test. From the moment that the plan was announced, it became an article of faith among the tiresome enforcers of movement and party purity [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics